The Mourner
by Kagelu
Summary: At the funeral of Princess Amnestria, her son muses and plots for his future.


The Mourner

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Disclaimer: Forgotten Realms is property of Wotc.

A/N: Malgalad sound abit mean spirited but considering his father is Elaith Craulnobur

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Malgalad watched the center of the circle of grievers through his mourning veil, at the girl bent almost double in her grief. Tears run unchecked down the young half elf's face, while small fists clenched and unclenched against the cold marble tomb.

He curled his lips in distaste. Who would have thought that a traitor like Princess Amnestria could inspire such an outpouring upon her death. But he supposed it is only proper to act sorrowful at a funeral, no matter what one's personal feelings towards the deceased might have been in life.

On that topic, Amnestria had made clear _her_ feelings about Malgalad during her lifetime. She had never fulfilled her duty as a mother, rather she spoke often her despise of him, perhaps desperate to prove to herself that by denying his existence it would somehow erase the fact that she had coupled with his father.

Once he realized that, Malgalad had thought her pathetic and looked down upon her- mere child he was. On the last night before her exile, Amnestria came to his room in the middle of the night to bid him farewell.

Malgalad wasn't fooled, if she had thought he was going to help unburden part of her guilt for causing the death of his grandfather, she was so wrong. Rather, Malgalad called her a reckless idiot who always allowed her heart to rule her head, regardless of who she hurt along the way and now his grandfather had paid the ultimate price. After that, he had told her to leave and never darken his door again. To his surprise, his mother had kept quiet and left.

They never met again, till now… It was strange; he expected to feel some measure of sadness at Amnestria's death. But he felt no such thing. In fact if he was honest with himself, Malgalad might even admit that what he felt was mostly relief that she would no longer haunt him with the possibility of her return. A small part of him might even be dancing with sadistic glee, Corellon Larethian forgive him!

Malgalad cursed to himself, Amnestria always brought out the worst in him. He returned his thoughts to the present and focused on the crying child.

'She really was a pathetic sight.' He snorted silently, if it had been someone else's child he knew he would sympathise. But this girl was the daughter of Bran Skrlsun, his mother's human lover had covered his mother's cruelty to him in front of his other relatives and in Malgalad's book that made the human even more cruel.

A movement directly across the circle caused him to stare straight at the tall figure that he knew was his uncle Prince Lamruil under the mourning robes and veil. By the slight tilt of the head, and the way the female figure next to him (his grandmother) held tightly onto his uncle's arm, it would seem both were staring right back. And Malgalad knews exactly what they want of him.

'Damn the hypnotics, too noble to get down from their high and mighty pedestal so they wish for the royal bastard to risk his always risky position. True, most don't know my true heritage but it's best to be careful. '

Malgalad feigned ignorance, giving thanks to the gods for the funeral veil that hid the mocking laughter of his eyes. His grandmother's hands tightened upon Prince Lamruil's arm.

Offending his powerful uncle and grandmother is never a wise move.

And Malgalad knew better than to make more enemies than necessary, by Shevarash he had more than enough! Most of them through no reason, other than his unfortunate birth. For this he had numerous personas that he used to manipulate those around him, he must in order to have survived the numerous assassination attempts on his life by parties both loyal and disloyal to the royal family. However, they were solely mistaken if they wanted him to comfort the wretched half elf~! Malgalah does have his pride.

A compromise then, subtly Malgalah scanned the crowd till he spotted the gold elf. Ah, there he is, Kymil has always been curious of his mother's moonblade. Malgalah narrowed his eyes, at times one might even say the gold elf was too curious. But for now, the gold elf would do for his purpose. It would be easy to arrange for foster care of the girl by a representative of the royal family. With a tiny smile, Malgalah congratulated himself on the neat tying up of the loose ends of this unpleasant affair and contemplated how to spend the rest of his visit to Evereska.


End file.
